Our Winter Story

by Meteor_Mirage

Chapter 2 - Reticence

Shining Armor was no stranger to his school’s library. Really, no one attending the school hadn’t spent at least a little time within the private school’s large, expansive library. In which you could find anything from cookbooks imported from Prance for their culinarian students, to romance novels for the shy yet sensitive jocks, to even Canterlot’s heaviest books, set aside for the ponies more into weightlifting.

For his part, Shining was usually only ever there to borrow whatever comics or manga the librarians hadn’t yet removed from the shelves. This usually meant incomplete sets of popular series like Neighruto and Gatherer/Gatherer, or strangely complete sets of canceled series like Beat the Vandel Buster.

All of which Shining had read through more than he was comfortable with admitting.

But now wasn’t the time for another jaunt through the weird world shounen battle manga. No, instead Shining was on the hunt for something more rare. A stallion! One with which he was to spend time in close contact with for an extended period of time.

For studying, mind, but rare it was even still.

Shining searched the large library for the stallion, Sunburst, with which he was to have his rendez-vous, but turned up nothing instead. He searched all the popular areas like the computer lab, the large gathering of desks in the center of the library, and even near the service desk.

Not a single speck of the orange and cream stallion could be found.

It was only when Shining began hunting down the darker corners of the library, where there were no windows and only the smell of musty old tomes, that he happened upon a small table with one stallion sitting its occupant.

Sunburst paid no attention to the world around him. His head bobbed to whatever music was playing in his headphones while he poured over the book sitting in front of him. Littered across the table were even more books stacked in small piles sorted by their relevance, Sunburst occasionally grabbing one with a hoof and consulting it before returning it and returning to the main book.

If Shining didn’t know any better, he could assume that the orange stallion was content and happy in this dark, uninhabited corner of the library.

It almost saddened Shining to have to interrupt the hardworking stallion.

Almost.

He approached behind the stallion shyly and carefully at first, trying hard to not fully interrupt him from his fevered studying too much. As such, he kept his hoofsteps light as he got closer. “Hey Sunburst? I’m, uh, here to work on the project?”

No response. Sunburst continued to work on his tasks without any indication that he’d even noticed Shining.

Perhaps his music was just too loud?

Thinking that if noise was the problem, Shining decided that maybe making himself visually present to Sunburst would be a better idea. As such, with a few timid steps, he finally appeared from behind Sunburst.

Seeing movement to his side, Sunburst turned in surprise to see it. Seeing a big, bulky jock of a stallion now suddenly behind him, he jumped in surprise from his seat with a bit of a yelp.

In his shock and surprise, he knocked into the table and sent books toppling all over the floor.

The librarian was very quick to loudly shush the two stallions.

Equally as quick, Shining Armor leaned down to check on Sunburst.

“Woah, dude, are you alright?” Shining asked, immediately beginning to look Sunburst over for any bangs or bruises he might have gotten in the fall.

Or, tried to at least. Sunburst swiftly smacked that assistance away with a hoof, getting up on his own with an annoyed and pained grunt. “I’m fine! Just, don’t sneak up on me again.” He grumbled, squinting as his naked eyes scanned the floor for something.

Thankful he could help in some way, Shining picked up a small set of circular glasses that had fallen along with Sunburst. Checking them over for damage as well for a moment, he offered them over to Sunburst with a sheepish smile. “Looking for these?”

Sunburst snatched them away before seeming to process what had happened, breathing a sigh of relief as he looked up at Shining with a bit of a conflicted expression. “Uh, thank you, I suppose.” He mumbled as he too checked his glasses for any damage. Pulling out a small hoofkerchief, he began to wipe down the smudges left by Shining’s hoof.

For a moment, Shining was able to bask in the appreciation, as small as it might have been.

“So, glasses, huh?” Shining asked, looking at the bespectacled stallion with a confused tilt to his head.

“Well, yes. Usually I require them to see.” Sunburst grumbled, now moving to pick up the fallen books. He fretted a bit over which one went where, his organization system now rendered useless. “That is, when I don’t misplace them when moving into a new dorm room.”

Shining brightened a bit at this. “Oh, so you’re not a Canterlot native?” He asked with a grin. “Hey, if you want, I could show you all the cool spots around the city! I’ve, uh, lived around my whole life, so I could probably find you someplace you’d like.”

“I’ll pass. I’ve only been living in Canterlot for a few years, but I haven’t seen anything nearly impressive yet.” Brushing past Shining, Sunburst reset the books in their proper places and reclaimed his seat at the table. Looking back up at Shining, he quirked up an eyebrow. “So, are we going to get this over with, or will we keep playing Twenty Questions?”

Deflating a bit, Shining sat down opposite Sunburst with a sigh. “Right, right. Sorry.” He stared down at the table with a bit of a blush. “So, what’re we doing for the project then?”

Neglecting to look up from his book, Sunburst sighed and hoof-wrote a few notes in the notebook to his side. “Well, considering I didn’t exactly expect you to show up, I took the liberty of choosing the myth of Achilles, who was-”

“Oh, like him and Patroclus?” Shining asked innocently.

Sunburst looked up from his book again, a bit of shock adorning his face. It took him another moment just to respond. “ Well, yes, but I was more thinking we focus on his earlier life. From being dipped in the Styx to that time he was a princess."

“Awesome! Dude was pretty much the model example for us Royal Guards, so I kind of look up to the dude.” Shining beamed. His overeager grin was almost bright enough to light up the dark hovel the two had made for themselves in the corner of the library. “It’d be nice to go into his, uh, relationship with Patroclus, but if you don’t want to…”

“I’m sure it’ll come up.” Sunburst said with a bit of a laugh, one that surprised even him. Looking away for a moment, he sighed softly. “A royal guard, huh? I should thank you for your service, I suppose.”

It was now that Shining’s smile got a bit more sheepish. “Well, Royal Guard in training. Which basically means I train every weekend to get better at the whole guarding thing. Swordplay, battle strategy, standing endurance, and a lot of marching.” He sighed, growing a bit exhausted just remembering the work he’d done the previous weekend.

So. Much. Standing.

“Sounds impressive. I should swing by and check it out some time.” Sunburst said without thinking. Once he did realize what he said, a light blush dusted his face that he quickly hid by diving his head further into his book.

Luckily for him, Shining didn’t notice the blush.

Unluckily for him, Shining’s smile only got brighter and larger despite it.

“Oh totally! Like I said, we train every week in the Canterlot Castle courtyard!” Shining said, as giddy as could be. “We’re not really supposed to have guests or visitors, but I figure they can make an exception. You know, if you want…” His expression became a bit muted as he realized that, just maybe, he was doing too much too fast.

Sunburst’s face dipped even further into his book. “Oh, well, I suppose if I have nothing else to do.”

Shining brightened once again, bouncing in his seat a bit. “Oh? What do you usually do on weekends?”

From anyone else, Sunburst would have found this question suspect at best and obviously leading to a thinly veiled insult at worst. But there was something about Shining Armor, this golden retriever of a stallion, who seemed to be bouncing in his seat as he excitedly waited for a response…

Something Sunburst felt, for now, that he could trust.

“Well, I suppose that normally I just… sit around my dorm room and read. Though sometimes I’ll go out to a cafe… to read.” Sunburst gave a little bit of a huffing sigh as he realized just how boring his average day-to-day must seem. He turned away, a bit of a blush crossing his face. “It’s what I did at my old school, at least. There wasn’t exactly a lot else to do there.”

“Oh yeah, you went to Celestia’s academy right?” Shining grinned eagerly. “My sister just started going there not too long ago. How’d you like it?”

Sunburst shot Shining a blank, lingering stare. One that lasted for quite a few moments before he spoke again. “Well, I dropped out and transferred to this school for a reason.” His head dipped down into his book as he sighed softly. “I believe you can draw your own conclusions”

Realizing what he’d just done, Shining blushed as Sunburst returned to mostly ignoring him. He tapped his hooves upon the surface of the table nervously for a moment before stuttering out a question.

"W-well, what do you normally read? Just, like, spellbooks, or…"

Perhaps, just one more chance.

Looking up from his book, staring at Shining from over his round spectacles, Sunburst gave a bit of an exasperated look. "Well, if you must know, I've mostly stepped away from conventional magic for the time being. Instead, I've been mostly drawn in by Japaneighs comics.”

Shining’s eyes lit up at this. “Oh, like Neighruto and stuff? I read that in this library all the time!”

Despite Shining’s excitement, Sunburst sighed a bit. “S-sort of? Neighruto is a nice manga and all, but I suppose I’m into more niche series like Ghost Note or Case Closed.”

Shining tapped a hoof to his chin for a moment, thinking on it. “Hmm. I don’t think the library has either of those.” He thought for another moment, really running through the list of manga he’d built in his head. And then, another lightbulb moment as he remembered something else instead. “Oh, but I bet that one place by 8-Bit's house has some! The owner has, like, a whole wall full of manga."

Interested, Sunburst raised his head and an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware there were bookstores around here that sold that much manga. Every one I've tried had at best a few copies of the most popular shounen series."

Shining scratched the back of his head a bit sheepishly. "Yeah, it's a bit of a hole-in-the-wall that my little sis drags me to when she comes home for the holidays.” A flash of sadness briefly crossed his face, but he quickly shook it off. “My only problem is that the books aren’t in Equish, so they’re really hard to read. I wanted to learn how to read them, but I’m already failing my Prench classes so…”

Suddenly, Sunburst was out of his seat with hooves planted hard on the table in front of him. “So you’re telling me that there’s a place in Canterlot that sells imported manga in its original language, untouched by the hooves of uneducated and biased localizers…” His eyes were wide and his grin elated as he slammed his hooves upon the table. “And no one thought to tell me?”

Another loud shush came from the librarian as they glared at Sunburst, willing him to either quiet down or leave.

With a heavy amount of shame, Sunburst sat back down in his seat with a heavy blush across his face. “S-sorry, I just… I have to go. I have no idea how it-” Looking back up at Shining, Sunburst stopped as he saw the expression on the stallion’s face.

Smug satisfaction was written across Shining’s entire face. It wasn’t an expression he normally wore, but one he wore considerably well despite it.

“I told you I knew some cool places in Canterlot, dude.” Shining smirked smugly. “See? We’re not all ballrooms and palaces."

Sunburst crossed his hooves over his chest, turning away from Shining with another huff. "Well, I suppose that you're right. You have lived in Canterlot for much longer than I have." It took a moment, but his gaze flickered back towards Shining pleasingly. "So, perhaps, I might need someone to show me to this bookstore… this weekend?"

If Shining’s smile was previously as bright as his namesake, it was now glowing as bright as Celestia’s sun.

And despite himself, Sunburst couldn’t help but find it endearing.

“For sure! We can totally make it happen if you want.” Shining beamed, for just a moment riding the high of friendship. But after a moment, he thought it over and sheepishly scratched the back of his head with a hoof. “Or, well, it’d have to be after my guard training, but I’m sure we could still make it work.”

“It’s held at the castle, right? My favorite cafe is nearby, so I guess I could just wait there until you’re done.” Sunburst supposed with a bit of a shrug. “They have a pretty great coffee, if you’re interested in that.”

“Well, I’ll definitely need something to keep me going after.” Shining sighed, looking away from Sunburst for a moment. In his distraction, a nearby clock caught his eye. Upon reading the time, his eyes widened a bit. “Ah, dang, is it that late already? I… kinda forgot I have homework to finish tonight. And I think mom wants me to help out with dinner.” Shining deflated a bit at this point, especially as he again looked over Sunburst’s carefully curated collection of books. “Sorry for not, like, helping at all with this project today. Probably not great I was late either.”

Sunburst was quick to wave that sentiment off with a hoof. “It’s no problem at all. Personally, I’m just happy you showed up.” His lips briefly quirked up into a shy smile. “I… had quite a bit of fun today. If you’d like, we could meet up here again tomorrow? If you’re not too busy, that is.”

“Sounds like a plan! And, uh, thanks for being cool about all this.” Shining blushed as he packed up and stood from his seat. “I guess the rumors were wrong about you, you’re just a pretty rad guy.”

Sunburst blinked. “Oh, yeah. No problem, I suppose.”

Not noticing the confusion in Sunburst’s voice, Shining Armor beamed again. “Alright! Well, I’ll see you after school tomorrow!” He said with a bit of a chuckle. He then pulled out a slip of paper from his saddlebag, squinting as he read it over. “Now to figure out what in Celestia’s name a ‘leek’ is.”

Without much of a goodbye, Shining Armor left on his way to Canterlot’s food market.

This left Sunburst to just watch him leave with one final thought.

“There’s… rumors about me?”

---

About an hour later, and after the help of numerous ponies in the shopping district, Shining Armor finally made his way home with shopping bags in tow. They were a bit hefty, weighing him down heavier than his saddlebag did, but he was a big strong stallion, and he could totally do it.

Ignore how he huffed and sweated as he set the groceries down on the kitchen table.

Though his mother, Twilight Velvet, couldn’t ignore that fact. She stared her son down with a bit of a confused look. “I thought I asked you to just bring home a few vegetables for tonight’s salad?”

A sheepish look crossed Shining’s face as he nudged one bag towards his mother, the other, heavier bag he pulled close towards himself. “Oh I , uh, I did! That one’s for you, and this one’s for me!”

Shining pulled the bag even closer to himself, which proved to be his fatal mistake. Though carefully stacked within the bag, its contents were still easily disrupted by Shining’s strong forelegs wrapping around them protectively.

The first four volumes of Ghost Note spilled out onto the counter, easily seen by any prying eyes. And that was only the few that had slipped out, an untold number still sitting within the bag, but still somehow judging Shining.

But nothing was more judgmental than the lingering, withering stare his very own mother gave him upon seeing comics littering her kitchen counter.

"Shining, I thought we talked about spending all of your money on comics." She said as she pulled the bag he'd allotted her and began setting out the vegetables within. "I know you make more as a guard than you did working the market stalls, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend it all.”

“But moooooom!” Shining whined, collecting his books and drawing them to his chest again, albeit more carefully this time. “I didn’t spend all my money on this. Just, you know, a good bit of it. And besides…”

At Shining’s pause, Twilight Velvet raised an eyebrow. She also made a mental note to teach her son the difference between the genders of bell pepper.

But Shining only caught the eyebrow.

“Besides, the new colt in school suggested them to me.” He said, a light blush dusting across his face. “He seems pretty nice, and I wanna have stuff to talk about when we hang out on the weekend.”

Twilight Velvet knew that look. The shy smile as he cradled something he might not entirely be into, whether it be buckball tickets or farming tools, while going on and on about a stallion he’d met in class or in the lunchroom. An obsession that continued until the stallion inevitably turned him down, for better or for worse, and set the cycle to zero again.

But, as his mother, all she could do was support him through his highs and his lows.

“So, tell me about him.” Twilight Velvet said with a soft smile. “This mystery stallion, forcing you to spend all of your bits on comics.”

“They’re not comics, mom, they’re manga.” Shining said, rolling his eyes playfully. Then his expression got slightly sheepish again, pressing his hooves together shyly. “His name is Sunburst and he seems really cool! He just transferred from Celestia’s Academy, and he’s sort of moody but also seems pretty dorky.”

“You two have that in common, I think.” Twilight Velvet mused. Thinking on it for a moment as she returned to vegetables, her eyes brightened as she had a small thought. “Oh, speaking of Celestia’s Academy. It looks like Twilight and Spike will be coming home for a while starting next weekend. It seems like there was an incident.”

"Oh no, I hope everyone's alright." Shining said with a soft frown. Then, after a few moments of thought, he put a hoof to his chin. "Hey, I wonder if Sunburst and Twily know each other."

"Probably not, sweetheart. It's a big school, and they're a few years apart." Twilight Velvet supposed, then gestured to her son. "Now go on and do some studying before dinner. It's just the two of us tonight, so plan on eating early."

"Yes mom." Shining said as he collected his things from the kitchen table.

As he walked off to his room. He couldn't help but smirk to himself as he knew that the only thing he'd be studying that night would be his various volumes of Ghost Note.

Just according to keikaku^[1].

Author's Note:

^[1]Keikaku means Plan.

Comments

[Mix-up]

Awesome story so far I do like this take on the show characters. The tenuous connection create between SA and SB seems pretty natural with their conflicting tastes and different temperaments not that they are ever aggressive with each other but just not really have interest in each other and are putting in the work to at least try. Looking forward to see more of this story.

[Bicyclette]

This usually meant incomplete sets of popular series like Neighruto and Gatherer/Gatherer, or strangely complete sets of canceled series like Beat the Vandel Buster.

ok “Gatherer/Gatherer” is just brilliant

Not a single speck of the orange and cream stallion could be found.

aww he is a creamsicle

Seeing movement to his side, Sunburst turned in surprise to see it. Seeing a big, bulky jock of a stallion now suddenly behind him, he jumped in surprise from his seat with a bit of a yelp.

aww he is so scrunkly

“Well, yes. Usually I require them to see.” Sunburst grumbled, now moving to pick up the fallen books. He fretted a bit over which one went where, his organization system now rendered useless. “That is, when I don’t misplace them when moving into a new dorm room.”

well now he is starting to resemble more the Sunburst we are used to

Sunburst looked up from his book again, a bit of shock adorning his face. It took him another moment just to respond. “ Well, yes, but I was more thinking we focus on his earlier life. From being dipped in the Styx to that time he was a princess."

consider Tartarus and Cerberus exist in canon Equestria, we might as well just take all the ancient Greek personnages

From anyone else, Sunburst would have found this question suspect at best and obviously leading to a thinly veiled insult at worst. But there was something about Shining Armor, this golden retriever of a stallion, who seemed to be bouncing in his seat as he excitedly waited for a response…

Shining would have that effect wouldn’t he

Despite Shining’s excitement, Sunburst sighed a bit. “S-sort of? Neighruto is a nice manga and all, but I suppose I’m into more niche series like Ghost Note or Case Closed.”

i assume this is Sunburst being a manga elitist in which case yeah that tracks

Suddenly, Sunburst was out of his seat with hooves planted hard on the table in front of him. “So you’re telling me that there’s a place in Canterlot that sells imported manga in its original language, untouched by the hooves of uneducated and biased localizers…” His eyes were wide and his grin elated as he slammed his hooves upon the table. “And no one thought to tell me?”

dang Sunburst is a super nerd! which, again, tracks

“Sounds like a plan! And, uh, thanks for being cool about all this.” Shining blushed as he packed up and stood from his seat. “I guess the rumors were wrong about you, you’re just a pretty rad guy.”

very like Shining to just let this slip without a thought lol

“So, tell me about him.” Twilight Velvet said with a soft smile. “This mystery stallion, forcing you to spend all of your bits on comics.”

hehe love the way Twilight Velvet put it

^[1]Keikaku means Plan.

perfect